Rob Gillen's WebLog

Base Template for MOSS Master Pages

I'm posting this more for my own benefit (able to find it later) than anything, but while working on a master page customization for a client I stumbled across a posting on MSDN on how to create a minimal master page (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa660698.aspx).

I ran into a few issues simply using the code as presented...

1. SPD didn't like the ASP.NET style comments... that really threw it for a loop and it kept removing items from the code with no warning... changing those comments to HTML-style fixed things
2. The first item in the community content section didn't seem to apply... things looked fine.
3. The second item in the community content section was correct.
4. I also had to add a content placeholder stub for "PlaceHolderTitleRightMargin" in order for everything to work properly for me

Why Can't I Create a Master Page in the Site Collection???

Chalk it up to being a newbie at Sharepoint v3/MOSS 2007 development, but I expected that since I was a site "owner" of both a sub-site as well as the site collection that I should be able to create a master page using SPD and save it to the site collection's master page gallery... silly me.

With some assistance from a co-worker, it was discovered that being a site owner doesn't give you rights to do this. You have to also be a member of the "Designers" group. I understand this role, but it seems odd that the "owner" doesn't have this permission as well...